An Irresistible Bachelor(88)
"Two hot dogs and a bag of licorice since Rhode Island."
Jack rolled his eyes. "And I thought you were a gourmand."
"Got to keep my nitrate level up and Twizzlers are an acceptable substitute for sorbet if you have to clean your palate on the road. Is Thomas here?"
When Jack nodded toward the ceiling, Nate shouted upstairs, "Hey, where's the cook in this place?"
As Thomas bolted down the back way, Callie met Jack's eyes.
She was determined to make him talk tonight. She'd had it with the silence.
With Nate and Thomas catching up in the kitchen while Callie ate, Jack changed into a pair of running shorts and a ratty T-shirt and headed down to the basement. He'd installed a gym there ten years ago, when his schedule had started getting really hectic. He worked out on a regular basis at dawn and sometimes again at night, especially when he had a lot on his mind.
And he sure as hell did now. Things were going south in his personal and his professional lives and the raging storm of disasters was making him feel like he'd lost control of things.
Which was not something he tolerated well under the best of circumstances.
Of the host of problems he had, his estrangement from Callie bothered him most. He hadn't expected her to have something to hide or for there to be problems between them if he ran for governor. He'd figured the hardest part was over. He loved her, she loved him, and even if he was still gun-shy on marriage, he was making future plans with her in mind.
Instead, everything was a f*cking mess. He wanted to talk to her, but his emotions were about as level as his temper. One minute he was mad enough to walk out on the relationship, the next he was having trouble not begging at her door just to hold her. He knew the former wasn't something he really wanted to do. It was out of frustration and...
God, hurt was the word. The fact that she didn't trust him enough to take care of her, to guard her secret, stung like hell.
Looking into the future, he had to assume things were over between them if he ran for office. Other than keeping her a secret, which was not only disrespectful but also impractical, there seemed to be no other alternative. God knew he'd been searching for days for some sort of solution.
Going over to the treadmill, he fired the thing up to a rubber-burning pace and pounded himself into the ground. Forty-five minutes and six miles later, he was covered with sweat, his thighs were on fire, and his shoulder was screaming from having to support the weight of the cast. He juiced up the machine a little more and did his last mile at breakneck speed.
When he stepped off, he sucked back half a liter of water and sat down on a bench. Leaning his head against the wall, he felt the sweat dripping off him and hoped his physical exhaustion would give him some clarity.
Clear thinking had been elusive for him lately. Courtesy of all his emotions about Callie and their situation, he was looking at a lot of things in really weird ways. It was as if he couldn't turn his feelings off anymore about anything, so the unfettered objectivity he was known for was difficult to get a hold of.
At an earlier stage in his life, he would have been convinced he was losing his edge.
Hell, for the first time in his professional life, he was torn as to the appropriate course of action in a deal when all the financial indicators were clear. It was that damn blood processing company. The technology the McKay brothers had patented could truly improve the delivery of blood products around the globe, helping thousands and thousands, maybe millions of people. But the two inventors had seriously diluted the company by having given shares of it away to what sounded like every conceivable member of their family.
The McKays needed a big influx of cash if they were going to succeed, but if Jack put his money into the company with all of those people holding an interest, he might as well bury the stuff in the yard for all the return he was going to get on the investment. There were just too many fingers in the same pie.
He knew no other venture capitalist was going to touch them for the same reason, but nonprofit grant support and government funding could only take them so far. To succeed, the brothers needed the kind of money only a Walker Fund could provide.
As recently as six months ago, the solution would have been totally obvious to him. A no-brainer. Hands down he'd have passed on the deal and found something that would make him the kind of returns he demanded.
Now? He was torn.
Hell, maybe it wasn't just Callie who was getting him to think differently. His general counsel's daughter had taken a turn for the worse. The little girl was receiving hospice care at home now and Jack had taken to occasionally stopping by the house on his way back to Buona Fortuna at night.